action movie freak
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action movie freak
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PREDATORS"The most dangerous killers on the planet . . . but this is not our planet."
(9 July 2010) Director: Nimród Antal |
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Royce and his Merry Band of Killers, plus one |
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The General, A Hostage, and Multiple Extras and Unknown Elements |
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Killers on Parade   This variety of men/methods/weapons kept it interesting, as opposed to just great big men with the biggest guns possible. This new group still seemed armed to the teeth, having been extracted, in some cases, from combat fully loaded and carrying lots of ammunition, which helped because when they faced their second challenge (their first being getting together without killing each other), the Predator 'dogs'. The group shot the shit out of everything, like the tree-chopping-firepower scene in the first movie. I think too much of a big deal was made about the Predator dogs pre-release. They looked incredible but all they could do was run and bite (same as a regular dog, just way uglier). They had horns too, lots of them, and claws, but they were no match for weapons. Big credit to special effects for making them look 'real' (their skin/wounds were amazing). Their main purpose, it seemed, was to use up ammunition. Something a little too easy as a plot device, but when you're thrown into a jungle and don't know yet that there's something bigger out there you might need the bullets for, shooting the shit out of the smaller right-now danger seems appropriate. Still, it was hard to be in the moment and not be thinking of the Predators you knew were coming, and that they would need all the bullets they could get for. (*More about weapons at the end.)
Manpower  
The Characters   There's a leader (ROYCE is Dutch). The twist is he's not the biggest and strongest, and he doesn't want to lead. Dutch was very much in charge, trying to get his men out alive, and felt protective. Royce is ready to use them as bait or sacrifice them at every turn. This is what made the movie for me (it rang true), but they didn't set it up well enough that he's an uncaring bastard at the beginning, so a turnaround at the end was too predictable.   A comrade at odds with him (ISABELLE is Dillon): The twist is his second in command (so to speak) is a girl. She also serves as the Anna in the telling of the story of "el diablo cazador de hombres" from the first movie naming 1987 and Guatemala (I always thought it was Nicaragua) as a case file (which was cool).   One of them has the third-eye/sixth-sense element (HANZO is Billy): The twist is he's Asian. He makes the sacrifice last stand, but I won't spoil how that ends.   The big dumb lovable blonde (NIKOLAI is Blain): The twist is he's a family man, Mac 'n' Blain were kinda 'close' LOL. "He was, uh . . . my friend."    The token black guy (even though there are 2 in both movies, MOMBASSA is Mac): No twist. Like Mac, he's the first to see something.   The sacrifice: Sadly, they killed off Danny Trejo WAY early (CUCHILLO is Hawkins): The twist is a big mean guy with 2 guns gets taken down first. I thought it was a waste to cast him, but maybe they used him so it was more of a surprise that he's the first to go. Cuchillo's being taken by the Predators happened without being shown. I was thinking it would have been stronger if you thought he really might still be alive. There was no setup for the Predators' mimicry trick, and no real payoff later for Anna discovering it. She definitely should have mentioned it to the group. (I'm thinking they filmed an audio payoff then it got cut. How many times have you seen outtakes that should have been left in? I would say it's most often 80/20 that they should have left something in. This movie is 1:47. I wish Hollywood didn't follow the time rule so much, or that they would change the rule to 2:00-We want more!!)   The whiner who gets wounded but doesn't want to be left behind (EDWIN is Poncho): (I wanted to scream "I can make it, I can make it!") The twist is, he's lethal! I saw that coming. When there's a doctor and he never does any doctoring . . . And an extra character just for fun who is like Bill Paxton from Aliens (STANS is Hicks "I'm Hudson, he's Hicks", I mean Hudson). And what movie isn't better with a little "Oh you want some of this?!" As the biggest Aliens fan EVER, I think they should have used him more, but maybe that would have seemed too obviously Aliens-ish. As it was, there was a scene that seemed like a twist on the drone crash/aftermath scene in Aliens ("real pretty shit now").  
The BERZERKER PREDATOR serves as The General. The twist is, he's in charge
of the Predators.
The Music
Also, show the perspective of where the Predators camp was in
position to the ravine, and to where they fell into the water,
so we
would have had more invested in their efforts. Using traps
to make a last stand and then not showing the effort that went
into making them is the same mistake that was made in the
theatrical release version Aliens. We need to be rooting
for them more (as it was were were just watching them get picked
off). In the
Aliens version with the extra minutes added back in, the whole prep for setting up the automatic
guns and showing the stages of the aliens breaking through the
series of doors really MADE the last stand feel. This
makes us want the Group to make it! They should have had the last stand be after Noland I
think. To know where they have to go to (back to the camp—maybe
show it from the height of that mining ship/drill thing) and
then choose a spot to defend to get the Predators numbers down a
little. (I thought there would be at least 8 from the multiple
targets shot in the preview. In the movie there was only one,
and only one predator in that scene.).   The Predators are supposed to be these awesome hunters, but if you didn't see the first one (and since they didn't used the trees like in the first one), all they really had besides the home-court advantage, size, strength, dogs, and a bird, was a cloaking device. As it was, for awesome hunters they were easily killed. One of them was killed with 1 shot (what was that driftwoody-weird looking thing? was it supposed to be a Predator?). They got them with explosions several times, and the swordfight took out another one. Not nearly enough 'fight' in them considering this was their turf and they'd been doing this a while. I wondered if they shouldn't have been shown to be awesome hunters. I got no fear of them just from blood/guts/bones, traps, and cages. Fear worked in the first one because the men were really big and armed and if they were scared, what chance do you have? In this one, the people seem average and without guns, they're 'killers' but that doesn't do it for me. It wasn't until I saw the 3 new Predator bad asses (Berzerker, Tracker, Falconer) appear after the big camp shootout that I got the deep-shit danger feeling. I needed that fear earlier. I needed to know what great hunters the Predators were. The movie didn't give us that (just the idea that they could avoid traps, some piles of bones, and some strung-up dead blood-drippy carcasses, which could have been for food). The humans never seemed outmatched. There was never that "we're all gonna die" feeling the first one gave with only 1 Predator.
Weapons Here is a weapons chart from SyFy's dvice.com:
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The movie was good. I saw it twice, and will probably go again. The ending was sooooo satisfyingly violent! I haven't
enjoyed a killing like that
since Jeepers Creepers 2. As escapism, it really
hit the mark. The whole look of it (characters, setting,
weapons, creatures) is fantastic! (After writing this I feel a little
ungrateful like Woody Allen's Annie Hall joke about life
with the two ladies at the Catskill mountain resort "Boy, the
food at this place is really terrible." "Yeah, I know; and such
small portions.") They made it good enough, but I
think they weren't shooting for GREAT. My second big criticism
is just that I wanted more!
